EVENING. People.

Great-grandmother, 87, Earns High School Diploma

WYANDOTTE, Mich. — She dropped out of high school to work as a nurse's aide to help support her family after her father died.

Seventy-one years later, Irene Stack got her diploma.

More than 30 relatives, including some of her 23 great-grandchildren, were on hand Tuesday as Stack, 87, became the oldest student to earn a degree from the Wyandotte Public Schools' adult education program."

"I went to a lot of graduations in my life, but you just don't have that feeling until you get there your own self," she told the Detroit Free Press in a report Thursday.

For decades, Stack was busy with other things. She married at 18, had children and mourned the deaths of her first husband, then her second. She worked to support five children.

"You can't always do the things you like to do. You have to do what's best for your family," she said.

Stack retired from the last of many jobs in 1976, and it didn't sit well with her.

"Retirement put her in a real slump," daughter Shirlee LeBlanc of Saline told the newspaper. "We were all worried because she became a couch potato and a TV-holic. Then all of a sudden, she said, `I'm going back to school. I've always wanted my diploma and I'm going to get it.' "

That was in 1994. Stack found herself surrounded mostly by dropouts in their teens and 20s who also decided to return to Roosevelt High School.

"They doted on her. They treated her like they would want someone to treat their own grandparents," said Jan Jordan, a teacher and senior class adviser.

. Stack hinted that she might not rest on her scholastic laurels.

"My kids say, `Why don't you take a class in college?" she said. "I'll think about it. You can do a lot of things if you really want to, I guess."